There are significant weaknesses in some of the traditional justifications for assuming that aid will foster development. This paper looks at what the cross-country aid effectiveness literature and World Bank Operations Evaluation Department reviews have suggested about effective aid, first in...

The dominant hypothesis in the literature that studies conflict is that poverty is the main cause of civil wars. The authors instead analyze the effect of institutions on civil war, controlling for income per capita. In their set up, institutions are endogenous and colonial origins affect civil...

This paper examines the relationship between international migration and source country fertility. The impact of international migration on source country fertility may have a number of causes, including a transfer of destination countries'fertility norms and an incentive to acquire more...

The consensus among scholars and policymakers that"institutions matter"for development has led inexorably to a conclusion that"history matters,"since institutions clearlyform and evolve over time. Unfortunately, however, the next logical step has not yet been taken, which is to recognize that...

Using household survey data, this paper estimates the mortality impact of improved water and sanitation access in order to evaluate the potential contribution of water and sanitation investment toward achieving the child mortality targets defined in Millennium Development Goal 4. The authors...

This paper presents the results of two field experiments on local accountability in primary health care in Uganda. Efforts to stimulate beneficiary control, coupled with the provision of report cards on staff performance, resulted in significant improvements in health care delivery and health...

Using subnational historical data, this paper establishes the within country persistence of economic activity in the New World over the last half millennium. The paper constructs a data set incorporating measures of pre-colonial population density, new measures of present regional per capita...

This Handbook offers an array of internationally recognized experts' essays that provide a current and comprehensive examination of all dimensions of international population policies. The book examines the theoretical foundations, the historical and empirical evidence for policy formation, the...